IN THE VORTEX
"Haven't we looked distressed long enough?"
"I'm going below. I can't bear to watch that storm!"
The speakers were Alice and Ruth DeVere respectively, and they were
leaning over the rail of the _Mary Ellen_, peering off into the swirl of
driving mists, and across the heaving waters toward where the motorboat
had been last seen.
"Yes, I think Russ has enough pictures," Mr. Pertell said in answer to
the remark of Alice. "I think you all looked sufficiently distressful.
If the scenes of the shipwreck itself go as well as the first part of
the drama has gone, we'll have a fine film."
"Then may I go below?" asked Ruth. "I don't like the looks of the
weather."
"It does seem as though we'd get the storm after all," her father
remarked.
"Go below, by all means," assented the manager. "We have done enough for
today, and I'll signal Russ to come in, if he hasn't already started to
do so. My, but this wind is blowing a regular gale!"
Others than Ruth found it uncomfortable on deck, and there was a general
movement toward the cabins which had been fitted up with considerable
comfort, even if the craft was an old one.
But just then, when there was a partial calm before another burst of
fury on the part of the storm, something occurred that threw the ship
into a flurry of excitement for a time. The sailors were making some
changes in the craft's canvas, when suddenly the throat and peak
halyards of the mainsail either parted, or, coming loose from the
cleats, came down on the run. The effect was to lower the sail so
quickly, and in such a fashion, with the wind blowing hard against it,
that there was a crash, a banging and booming of the canvas, and the
boom and gaff. The first mate, who was standing near the mast, was
knocked down, narrowly escaping going overboard.
"Oh, what has happened?" cried Ruth.
"Be still!" commanded Alice, clutching her sister by the arm. "Yelling
isn't going to do any good. We're not hurt."
They were standing near a companionway, well out of reach of the falling
sail.
"Oh, we're sinking! We're sinking!" screamed Miss Dixon.
"And the sharks! The terrible sharks in the water!" hysterically added
her friend.
The other ladies of the party were very much frightened, naturally, not
only by the accident to the sail, but by the screams of the two former
vaudeville actresses.
"Lively now, men!" called Jack Jepson, who happened to be nearest the
confusion of tangled ropes and sail. "Get him below. He doesn't seem to
be much hurt."
He pointed to the motionless body of the first mate. A quick examination
showed that the man was badly stunned, but that seemed to be the extent
of his injuries, as far as could be told.
"Up with her now! Up with her!" the second mate cried, as he gave orders
for hoisting the sail again, for the schooner was not under proper
control with the main canvas down, and a storm coming up rapidly. The
sail had been reefed, so the gaff had not fallen as far as otherwise
would have been the case.
"What's the matter?" shouted Captain Brisco who came up from his cabin
with Hen Lacomb. The two were seldom apart of late. A glance served to
tell the commander what had happened. He saw that Jack Jepson had
matters well in hand, and though Alice guessed that Captain Brisco had
no love for his second mate, the commander knew seamanship when he saw
it.
"Lively now!" he cried. "That's the idea! We'll run before the gale
now."
"But the motorboat!" cried Ruth, who had conquered her desire to flee to
the cabin, and hide her eyes and ears from such nerve-racking sights and
sounds. "Where is the _Ajax_--and Mr. Sneed--and--Russ?" she faltered.
"They'll probably be coming in now," the captain said, but he did not
take the trouble to look around and see. "We can't wait for them in this
wind," he went on.
"But we _must_ wait for him!" Ruth cried, getting excited. "We can't go
off and leave them in that motorboat, on the ocean, in a storm! We must
wait!" She started toward Captain Brisco, with her hands held out
appealingly.
Alice was wildly looking around for a sight of the smaller craft. She
had seen it just before the sail fell, but now there was nothing about
the schooner but a bare waste of waters.
She knew enough about the technical side of moving pictures to realize
that for some time, it had been too dark to take any film. Russ must
have known that, too, and would have started back for the schooner. But
if he had, where was he now?
Alice asked herself that question as she looked around.
"You must wait for him!" cried Ruth.
"Who? What's this?" demanded Mr. Pertell, for he had been hurrying to
and fro, making sure none of the members of his company had been injured
in the slight accident.
"Russ hasn't come back," volunteered Alice, who almost always spoke
ahead of her sister.
"He's out there!" Ruth found voice to say, "and Captain Brisco isn't
going to wait for him."
"You can't hold a ship still on the ocean, and a storm coming up!" the
commander cried, as though to justify himself. "We've got to run for it.
It would be madness now to lay to."
"But we can't desert Russ and Mr. Sneed!" cried the manager. "I thought
he was coming in. What shall we do? We must do something! I shouldn't
have asked him to risk it!"
The schooner was rapidly forging ahead, even under reefed sails, so
powerful was the wind.
"We could work around," said Jack Jepson, who had come up on deck after
seeing the first mate comfortably bestowed in his berth. "We could work
around and----"
"Who's in charge of this ship; you or me?" snapped Captain Brisco.
"You are, of course," was the quiet answer.
"Well then, have the goodness to keep still and let me manage matters.
I'm giving orders--not you!"
Poor Jack slunk back, smarting under the undeserved rebuke.
"I don't care who is in command!" cried Mr. Pertell. "This is my ship
and you're under my orders, Captain Brisco. I order you to pick up that
motorboat!"
"And I tell you we can't do it! They've got to come to us, we can't go
to them. They're not dependent on the wind as we are. They can travel
any direction they like, and they'll have to head for us."
"But we must make some effort to find them!" cried the manager. "It
would be wicked--criminal not to."
"Look here!" cried Captain Brisco. "You are the owner of this schooner,
it is true, and as such you are my superior, but the law gives me
supreme command of this craft at sea, unless I'm dead, or otherwise
deposed. And I tell you I won't risk all these lives by trying to beat
back in the teeth of this wind, to pick up a motorboat. It would be
worse than criminal--worse than wicked to do it. It would endanger all
on board!"
There was some logic in that. Even Mr. Pertell, exercised as he was by
the threatened danger to Russ, could appreciate that.
"But we must do something," the manager repeated.
"I'm doing all I can," Captain Brisco replied. "I'll shorten sail down
to the minimum; that will keep us before the wind, and out of the trough
of the sea! More I can't do. We must depend on them to pick us up. They
ought to be able to do it. You told me Dalwood could manage a boat."
"So he can--but--"
There was ominous meaning in the broken-off sentence.
"Well, we'll do the best we can," concluded Captain Brisco. "They will
have to take chances, as we're doing."
He went forward to give some orders.
Those aboard the schooner peered anxiously over the storm swept waters
for a sight of the motor craft, but they saw nothing. They shouted and
called, but only the wind howled back at them.
Then, with a suddenness that was appalling, they seemed to be flung into
the midst of a hurricane. The wind lashed the sea to fury, and the _Mary
Ellen_ spun around like some gigantic top.
"We're in the vortex!" cried Jack Jepson. "We're in the vortex of a
cyclone! All hands look to themselves!"